SORTED and a dog house

The building on the left is Glaxosmithkline, shown in the actual place it would be relative to my building, which is in Boston Manor, West London.

I am a supergeek, I spent ages on this. Also shown on the top are the motorway exits and car parks. Super. The dog house is more fun...

Some RNAs are bigger than others

Using this blog for revision hasn't been my way of doing things, because I don't want to put loads of stuff on here that's kind of unaccesible, but the majority of what I need to know is a bit unaccesible, therefore hard to write about too. I'm just reading stuff and not taking much notes at all.
Anyway I made this picture a day or two ago to illustrate the roles of RNA. Everyone's heard of DNA, but really, it's the very similar but much more dynamic RNA that actually get some stuff done. OK last time I said that proteins were where the action is, and that's true, mostly. But you're not gonna get any proteins without RNA first. RNA is both the messenger and the constructor of proteins.
In fact, RNA was quite likely the first molecule of life, since it can catalyse reactions on it's own. Protein formation would've been the next step, creating more efficient enzymes, before evolution then settled on DNA as the most stable carrier of information. Which puts a different perspective on things I think. I won't get into the wonder that is the origin of life for a good while yet though, it' just really mind boggling.
Anyways, I'm sure no-one's really reading but here's the picture. All those RNAs have different role's and are different shapes and sizes. We're still learning a lot about what they all do and how they might be used. For example, RNA interference (RNAi; the effect of short, double stranded RNA effecting genes after transcription) was only discovered in the early 90's and was a complete surprise.
Fun fact: small nuclear RNAs form complexes with proteins to form snRNPs. My textbook tells me these are pronounced 'snurps'.

These are the essential processes in turning biological information into action, and that's why  they've been called the Central Dogma. Although I don't like the word dogma used in science, it's clear that this stuff needed an important sounding name.

All that metabolism shit will be covered soon. That's what my second exam is about. Joy.

A comic I drew last night

Last night I had a nightmare about doing an exam I knew nothing about, and then I woke up at 1:30 today. I remember my alarm going off at 10, but I only remember pressing snooze once. I wish my lover was here to wake me up.
Later today I will have posted revision notes on here, and if I haven't you can ring me up and berate me hard.

It is difficult to be alive

I saw this phrase on a hoodie design a while ago and admired it suddenly. There are more articulate and poetic aphorisms, but this really is a simple summation that struck me. It's not that life is nasty or uncomfortable (for fortunate people like me, and most people, I imagine), but it's not usually very easy, even when it seems like it should be. All in all it's difficult, as well as wonderful or frustrating. But this is kind of reassuring; it's difficult for most people, so we can be magnanimous. I would like this hoodie also because the zippered hoodie is probably the best type of clothing ever made; body temperature can be controlled with ease...
The design is from the creator of this great comic of surreal melancholy; pictures for sad children.

 This is my very poor attempt at graphically interpreting the phrase. But I also wanted to show another thing; this program that I used for the writing is pretty cool.





In other news I attempt an explanation of some of my actual difficulties, for the entertainment of future me and the most dedicated of my friends and lovers. Under there...

Saturday Summary 1

I've decided to make saturdays my day of reckoning. Every week henceforth I shall make some record of my activities, successes, failings and short term plans. So it begins, in simple form.

What I have done:
Lived without tobacco for a third week running
Went to a market research session for free ice cream and £3 in vouchers. Bonus.
Exchanged my penny jar for scratchcards. Didn't win. Bummer.
Threw water balloons off a very high balcony. Glad that we didn't hit any people but did hit cars.
Went to the doctor. Filled in a form. Complimented on my blood pressure and pulse rate. Sadly no cure for my injured knee other than weeks of rest.
Went to the gym. Tried to exert myself on the crosstrainer, after three and a half minutes felt faint. Threw up soon after. Weights felt good, but muscles were sore for two days after.
Spent hours and hours reading the internet, finding loads of new comics to read
Uploaded a photo album to facebook.

What I haven't done:
Developed melanoma (that's what that pic I took is of, a skin section.)
My microbiology coursework, nor any revision or research.
Any amnesty organising

This week I will: 

• Do that microbiology coursework. Hand it in on Monday.
• Give a presentation on Friday about Krabbes disease.
• Organise an amnesty meeting and hopefully a new committee. 
• Go to all my lectures. 
• Go to the gym again but avoid cardiovascular overexertions.
• Make a song.

Let's see if this writing it down helps these things happen.

A comic I have maded

I have made a comic. I always wanted to make one, and the fan submission month on this excellent webcomic made me think I might be able to get an audience for it too, so I thought of this one below. Hope you like it.

I made it when I should of been doing my guinea pig hypersensitivity formal report. That report sucked, for reasons I can hardly fathom, but which I might explore here soon.
But also interesting stuff coming soon!

Time spent being greatly mundane

OK so this blog project is kind of stalling, much as I expected it might; no posts for a while. Gladly no-one is dissapointed by this. In any case for my future self I want to leave more fragments of my history behind... So what's been happening?

I've stopped smoking. Last Saturday night I decided it was time, when my girlfriend was exasperated by my chimneyism and asked me when I would stop... I thought about it and realised I could just do it then, that the excuses for carrying on didn't really make sense.

I'd been meaning to quit at Christmas; I know how wasteful a habit it is in terms of health and money. I was on about 10 a day. I bought some patches as a precaution, in case I got bad cravings, but honestly I haven't yet, just a slight urge.

But it's early days yet. I was quite drunk last night, and I did have one. Actually it was only three quarters of a rollie. And it was nice. But not great, not worth doing again.

I was happily smoke free for a year and a half before, this time I want to stay off for good. I know there'll be a few tough challenges in the next few weeks, but I don't see myself giving in.

There have been other things happening of course, here and there in my life. But I'm really not getting the blogging habit to record all those things. It'd be nice to write interestingly about them all, but mostly that would take the time that I now dedicate to napping, which is a much more pleasurable activity. 

In any case I hope this blog will eventually be filled with explanations and links to clever and fascinating things, a sprinkling of my insightful opinions and creative concoctions and only the choicest of anecdotes.

But for now I think I can allow myself some bemoaning of my failings: maybe it's just February being a crap month, but I've been especially unproductive these last few weeks. Either that or I'm unusually bothered by my unproductivity... Probably the latter actually. I've just got the feeling I need to sort my life out. I'm no stranger to this feeling, but I still have hope that I can keep it at bay by beating back my apathy; being useful every day. Too often I just spend the whole day with the radio, the TV, wikipedia, blogs, facebook... It's not only that I'm staying in all day that's a bit rubbish, but I'm not even doing anything. I'm probably learning something, but I'm not studying my course. I'm fiddling on the piano now and then, but I'm not making songs. I haven't even been out to buy any food today. I'm a bit... lame... Maybe I need to go cold turkey with napping like I have with smoking. 

Anyway, tonight I'm gonna do a few things I've been putting off. And soon I'll upload some of my archive...

In the meantime as a reward for reading all that, I have a quiz for you. See if you can figure out what these pictures are. I'll tell if you ask..... (OK the answers are under the link...)

Architecture Fantastic

So I was thinking of writing a health article for the student magazine, that I would post on here. Of course I haven't got round to it yet, but such is my life. In any case, to keep this unloved blog a little bit fresh, I thought I'd post some pics of one of my architectural fancies.

Sketchup is great for making these sort of fantasies tangible, although this is the only one I've ever done that is an good.

I call it hung house. It's a giant mansion with a giant swimming pool, on the outskirts of London. The flat roof is a garden with a circular window in the middle, and plants feature heavily all over the building. It's mostly open plan inside, with a few enormous windows, plus windows between floors. Under the water line of the pool is a window into the cellar.

I think architecture is always a kind of fantasy, a massive embodiment of someone's idea of living. It's a constant shame that the art form has in so many cases been dulled down to dissapointing mediocrity around the urban landscape. I'm a rationalist, but I still think aesthetics are worth the investment.

If you've never used it, here's sketchup, which is really great as a free program that's fairly simple to use. The best feature is downloading the enormous array of other people's models that you can place in your own.